Eugène Godard

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Eugène Godard, lithograph by Eduard Kaiser , 1851

Pierre Eugène Godard (born August 26, 1827 in Clichy , † September 9, 1890 in Brussels ) was a French aeronautical engineer .

Live and act

Eugène Godard, son of a master mason , began his training in Paris in 1841 at the small school of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers with the aim of becoming an architect . When he saw a gas balloon take off in 1845 , he became enthusiastic about balloon flight. He built his first hot air balloon , but it didn't fly. From 1846 he successfully built hot air balloons. In 1847 he set up a workshop with his brother Louis in Lille and made his first hot air balloon flight there.

In 1849 Godard settled in Bordeaux . There he met the English aeronautical engineer Charles Green , who persuaded him to fly with a light gas balloon . Godard built the Ballon le Ville de Bordeaux on it , with which he made many balloon ascents on the Place de l'Étoile on behalf of the Paris Hippodrome from 1850 (until 1869). On board the Ville de Paris balloon , he made his first major flight from Paris to Gits in 1850 . A month later in Marseille , this balloon caught fire and crashed, which Godard and the four passengers survived. In 1852 he designed the shell for Henri Giffard's first steam-powered airship . In 1853 he was the second balloonist to fly over the Austrian Alps from Vienna . When he carried out a series of balloon ascents on the occasion of Franz Joseph I's wedding in Vienna in 1854 , as an aeronaut for the Emperor of Austria, he signed a contract with the Austrian government for the construction of balloons, the formation of balloon pilot companies and the conduct of reconnaissance flights in the event of one War.

In 1855 Godard went to the USA with his wife and brother Auguste , where he stayed until 1858. He performed balloon ascents in particular in New York City , New Orleans , St. Louis , Louisville , Cincinnati and San Francisco . In 1856 he flew in a hot air balloon in Cuba with Matías Pérez , who bought the balloon and later disappeared with it over the sea. After a dangerous climb aboard the Américain balloon during a storm in Cincinnati, he invented the tear strip for rapid balloon deflation. In 1856 he was the first to fly with passengers in Canada from Montreal to Pointe Olivier in the province of Québec .

In 1859 Godard traveled with his family to Italy to take part in the Sardinian War . Godard entered the service of Napoleon III in breach of his treaty with Austria . as a scout in hot air balloons. From 1860 he started building hot air balloons again with special air heaters, which were known as Montgodardfières . In 1863 he became the emperor's aeronaut . He received the order for the Le Géant balloon (6,000 cubic meters volume for transporting 50 men) with a two-story gondola with a darkroom for aerial photography for the photographer Nadar . This balloon inspired Jules Verne to write his novel Five Weeks in a Balloon . He built the giant hot air balloon l'Aigle with a volume of 14,000 cubic meters. In 1864 his son Eugène Godard II was born. In 1866, Godard invented a new optical telegraph system that attracted the military . In 1867 he carried out scientifically interesting balloon ascents with Camille Flammarion .

Godard's balloon flight poster 1885

In 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War he organized reconnaissance balloon flights in Paris. The Provisional Government hired him to build airmail balloons. Then he built 33 balloons with his wife and brother Jules in the Gare d'Orléans in Paris and in the Gare de l'Est in 1871 . After the siege of Paris was over , he settled in Nantes . In 1872 he published De la Direction des ballons. Lettres à M. Dupuy de Lôme . In 1873 he flew in Amiens with his son Eugène II and with Jules Verne as a guest, whose only flight was this. In 1878 Godard was the pilot of Henri Giffard's large tethered balloon in the Tuileries in Paris . From 1884 he worked together with his nephew Louis II and Gabriel Yon in the Grands Ateliers Aérostatiques on the Champ de Mars in Paris , the most important balloon factory at the time. In 1885, Godard, as director of the Arènes du sport aéronautique, organized the first balloon flight competition in France. In 1888 he settled in Brussels, where he then died. He was buried in the Saint-Ouen cemetery near Paris .

Web links

Commons : Eugène Godard  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Janine Tissot: Pierre Eugène Godard (accessed November 29, 2016).
  2. ^ A b c Une famille illustrious: Les Godard (accessed November 29, 2016).
  3. ↑ Julien Turgan: Un accident d'aérostat à Cassis (accessed on November 29, 2016).
  4. ↑ Flew away like Matias Perez (accessed November 29, 2016).
  5. ^ Today in Aviation History - September 8 (accessed November 29, 2016).
  6. ↑ first aerial photograph taken from the air (accessed November 29, 2016).
  7. ↑ Larousse: Eugène Godard (accessed November 29, 2016).
personal data
SURNAME Godard, Eugène
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French balloonist and builder
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Clichy
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1890
Place of death Brussels